God rest his soul

A few weeks ago, a reader sent me an interesting message. Working as a sales representative in a local publishing house she asked one of the company’s writers why they didn’t have/start a blog. The response has been playing in my head for some time: “because I’m not going to write anything I’m not getting [...]

Who would’ve thought that blogs, social networking, SMS messages and the Internet in general, would be such a Ramadan-enabler, creating what is perhaps a Ramadani Web 2.0 subculture in the Arabian peninsula. Here’s a sampling of just some of the SMS messages that arrived to my cell phone since Ramadan began… [translated from Arabic] The [...]

Disclaimer: I want to emphasize that this post is an opinion and it is not one based on religious doctrine. It is based on political and social elements. I know it’s Ramadan, but I implore you to avoid quoting me the entire Quran just to prove a point or as a way of insisting that [...]

FP Passport has an interesting feature on what is best described as “graphical journalism”. The book, “After 9/11″, is essentially a graphical representation of the 9/11 Commission report. You can hear about the artists/authors on NPR. The reason I wanted to post this is mainly because I am always fascinated, if not infatuated, with how [...]

I was reading this AP piece today and it occurred to me that it’s actually pretty reflective of something I’ve observed recently: there are a lot of foreigners learning Arabic in Jordan. Casual visits to areas like Rainbow Street feel like study halls. Most of them are American. The numbers are increasing to the point [...]

Remember this big cultural phenomenon about a boy wizard named Harry Potter? Well, if you do, you might be interested to know that the Arabic version of Harry Potter has just been banned. Ponder that for a moment. I know. It’s heavy. Let it sink in. Oh, wait. This time, the ban is actually political [...]

I usually don’t write these types of open-ended posts as I do have a bias towards sticking to Jordanian-related subjects, however polygamy is an issue that’s been on my mind these past few days after watching the first season of HBO’s “Big Love”. The series is essentially about a polygamist in Utah who is married [...]